The Red Chief
THE RED CHIEF
‘Jack’ Idriess was born in 1891 and served in the 5th Light Horse in the First World War. He returned to Australia to write The Desert Column, which was published following his huge success with Prospecting for Gold.
He went on to write 56 books and was largely responsible for popularising Australian writing at a time when local publishing was still not considered viable.
A small wiry mild-mannered man, Idriess was a wanderer and adventurer, with a vast pride in Australia, past, present and future.
THE RED CHIEF
TOLD BY THE LAST OF HIS TRIBE
ION IDRIESS
ETT IMPRINT, SYDNEY
Exile Bay
This edition published by ETT Imprint, Exile Bay 2017
ETT IMPRINT PO Box R1906
Royal Exchange NSW 1225 Australia
First published by Angus & Robertson Publishers Australia 1953.
Reprinted in paperback 1965, 1969, 1973.
Reprinted as an Australian Classics edition 1981, 1986, 1991 by CollinsAngus&Robertson Publishers
Published with ETT Imprint by Richmond Ventures 2003
© Idriess Enterprises Pty Ltd, 1953, 2017
This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission.
Inquiries should be addressed to the publishers.
ISBN 978-1-925416-24-4 (paper)
ISBN 978-1-925416-25-1 (ebook)
Design by Hanna Gotlieb
THE LAST OF HIS TRIBE
He crouches, and buries his face on his knees,
And hides in the dark of his hair;
For he cannot look up to the storm-smitten trees,
Or think of the loneliness there—
Of the loss and the loneliness there.
The wallaroos grope through the tufts of the grass,
And turn to their coverts for fear
But he sits in the ashes and lets them pass
Where the boomerangs sleep with the spear—
With the mullah, the sling, and the spear.
Uloola, behold him! The thunder that breaks
On the tops of the rocks with the rain,
And the wind which drives up with the salt of the lakes,
Have made him a hunter again—
A hunter and fisher again.
For his eyes have been full with a smouldering thought;
But he dreams of the hunts of yore,
And of foes that he sought, and of fights that he fought
With those who will battle no more—
Who will go to the battle no more.
It is well that the water which tumbles and fills
Goes moaning and moaning along;
For an echo rolls out from the sides of the hills,
And he starts at a wonderful song—
At the sound of a wonderful song.
And he sees through the rents of the scattering fogs
The corroboree warlike and grim,
And the lubra who sat by the fire on the logs,
To watch like a mourner, for him—
Like a mother and mourner for him.
Will he go in his sleep from these desolate lands,
Like a chief, to the rest of his race,
With the honey-voiced woman who beckons and stands,
And gleams like a dream in his face—
Like a marvellous dream in his face?
—HENRY KENDALL.
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
To those readers who care not for introductory notes, I suggest starting straight away at Chapter I, and you are into the story.
This story needs an explanatory note, otherwise many readers could be forgiven for doubting that it is a factual story, for the character of the Australian aboriginal here portrayed is quite different to the general idea of him. I believe the reader will see the aboriginals depicted here, their beliefs and hopes, joys and sorrows, ambitions and hates, good points and general cussedness, as surprisingly like ourselves.
I did not wish to write this book. In fact, for twelve months I tried to forget it. Half a dozen times I addressed the notes back to Mr Russell McDonagh, then hesitated to post them. I wished to write my next book on any subject other than the Australian aboriginal, for I’d had enough of him for the time being.
However, there remained the haunting knowledge of a good story in those notes of bygone years, a story from a fast dying race, a whisper from the primitive past, that never would be written if not tackled now. And this story was unusual for two reasons. Firstly, it was coming from the dead. Secondly, it was a straight-out story from an aboriginal—and told so clearly and sensibly, so very different from the fairy-tales and stories for children that the aboriginal has given the white man so often. I have wondered at times whether the old abo believed the white man was not intelligent enough to absorb a real story of fact and grown-up life, when he obliged us so frequently with his fairy-tales.
Unwillingly at last I began to write the book. The notes were lent me—or rather forced upon me in such a nice way that I had to grudgingly promise, “Oh well, I’ll have a look at them!”—by Mr Russell McDonagh, of McDonagh Proprietary Limited, Gunnedah, New South Wales.
Mr Russell McDonagh is very keen on recording the old pioneering records of his district. He has an interesting collection, painstakingly gathered through the years. Among these were notes, actually the aboriginal story in straight-out form of far and away the best-remembered chief of the now extinct Gunnedah tribe. This story was written down word by word years ago by another well-known Gunnedah identity, the late Mr Stan Ewing. The story was from the lips of old Bungaree, last full-blood aboriginal of the tribe.
The late Stan Ewing was the son of Senior Sergeant John P. Ewing, who was in charge of the Gunnedah Police District of those days. Sergeant Ewing, like J. J. Smyth, T. B. Roberts, Doctor Hayne the Government Medical Officer at Gunnedah, and others, was a keen collector of aboriginal stories and relics. Stanley and his brother Ernest, with their schoolboy mates in those happy old bush days, grew up to play with and know the last of the local aboriginal youngsters as well as they did their own mates. And young Ewing reached manhood imbued with a great sympathy towards the last of the local tribesmen. The brothers were respected, but above all trusted, by them—as was the father, though they were always in awe of his official position.
Time slowly passed, and the old sergeant was ageing, too. It was fitting then, that young Stan Ewing, long after he had reached manhood, in the presence of the old sergeant and the old aboriginal, should receive this story he had long been curious to hear from the lips of the last of the tribe—but only after the very remnants of the tribe had faded away and old “King” Bungaree knew that he was going, too. Yes, just as the wind blows into dust the last stem of dried grass that was once upstanding and rich and green and “covered all the earth”—as the aboriginals believed they did, long before the white man came.
And now for Stan Ewing’s own written description of old Bungaree, the real teller of this tale.
At time of the digging up of the old chief’s grave there were only forty people in the Blacks’ Camp I take this from the notes my father made at the time. The majority were half-castes, but there were still a few full-bloods amongst them, mostly middle-aged or old. Bungaree was “king” of the tribe, but there is no Namoi River tribe at Gunnedah now.
Bungaree was a full-blooded aboriginal about seventy years old, and a very active man in his movements. He had a well-formed massive head. His face was large and round, enhanced greatly by a long and wide growth of beard that adorned it. His was a smiling face, given to hearty laughter. He was about five feet seven in height, a broad and deep chest, wide shoulders, good eyes, teeth, and hearing, with a decidedly poddy or Falstaffian stomach, while in talking to him one realized he was an intelligent man. Bungaree, from many years’ association with white people, could talk a very fair type of English. I have always found that the Australian aboriginal will quickly learn to talk a good class of English if you teach him, and talk that way to him.
So much for the teller of the tale. It would never have been told but for the professional interest and the curiosity of a hunter after relics. But let Stan Ewing carry on.
It all came about because of the Blackfellow’s Tree.
Even before 1865 the Black Fellow’s Tree was well known in the little township, very different then to the Gunnedah of today. The “tree” then was only a huge box-tree stump some twelve feet high, carved from base to top with intricate totemic designs, the work done by a stone tomahawk. The stump stood opposite the old Wesleyan Parsonage, well back from the roadside of Poe Street (later Abbot Street). All knew the stump as the burial site of some great aboriginal chief and warrior, the stump carved with his totemic designs when the tree was hale and hearty in the long-gone days when the tribe had its favourite camping site where Gunnedah is today. Numbers of white women for a Sunday afternoon stroll used to walk to the Blackfellow’s Tree. Even by 1865 it had weathered and been blown down and rotted and eaten to a shell by white ants. It was then only a twelve-foot stump. In that year Mr Arthur Turner, following tracks of his straying horses across Bloomfield Street, examined it. All around him then was virgin bush heavily timbered with box-trees, wilga, pine, belah, and patches of scrub. Big box-trees grew where the Wesleyan Church grounds are now.
Years slipped away. Gunnedah slowly grew. When Dr Hayne came to reside in Gunnedah he was an enthusiast on collecting ancient aboriginal weapons of war and domestic implements, such as stone grinding mills, needles from fish-bones, kangaroo and emu bones and kangaroo teeth. He found here some keen collectors in J. J. Smyth, T. B. Roberts, and my father, J. P. Ewing. But the doctor was keenest about getting possession of fine types of aboriginal skulls. The others preferred something extra in a boomerang, or in the material, shape, and fixings of a stone tomahawk, or in the shape and carvings of a nulla-nulla, heilamon (shield), or wommera.
My father was Senior Sergeant in Charge of Gunnedah Station and lived in the same quarters as the Officer in Charge of Gunnedah does today. One Friday afternoon Dr Hayne came to the Police Barracks to get my father to arrange a meeting between the doctor and Bungaree, the King of the Namoi River Tribe at Gunnedah—for so the brass half-moon swung by a cord about Bungaree’s neck was inscribed. Arriving just at this time from school, I was given a message to deliver to Bundaar, the tracker, down at the police stables, telling him to saddle his horse and come quickly to the office. Bundaar was then told to ride down to the Blacks’ Camp and tell Bungaree to come to the Police Station by half past nine next morning, and that Dr Hayne had left a plug of Conqueror tobacco at the Police Station for him.
Doctor Hayne said, “Sergeant, if you are not too busy, come over to the old carved stump with me to have a look about the job. Afterwards I’ll drive down and arrange with Mr Ashby about his job tomorrow.”
Next morning at 8 a.m. Bungaree, accompanied by a one-eyed and much younger aboriginal known as Jacob Painter, arrived at the Police Station. Very soon their pipes were going full blast on the doctor’s Conqueror tobacco.
On seeing Bungaree and Jacob Painter squatted down at the stable talking to Bundaar, the tracker, as any other schoolboy would I joined them, carrying the bull-roarer Bundaar had made for me. The three of them took it in turn to whirl the bull-roarer round, producing roaring, buzzing noises. During a lull in the whirling Warder Neil, on sentry-go along the promenade on top of the jail wall, shouted to Bundaar to take the bull-roarer and his friends too down into the far end of the horse paddock, and make his blinking noise there! Just at this time Dr Hayne drove into the Police Station yard, and he and my father walked down to where we were.
“Bungaree,” said Dad, “this is Dr Hayne, he wants you to tell him all you know about the old carved stump, and what the carvings mean, and tell the doctor all you can about the great warrior chief of your tribe who lived here long, long time ago. Will you go with the doctor now?”
My father went back to his office work. A constable went with the doctor and Bungaree. Jacob Painter wasn’t a Namoi River tribesman, he walked on the centre of the road, keeping off the burial-ground site. My brother Ernest, who had been seated with Mr Ashby on a log on the other side of the street amongst a clump of box-trees alongside Roache’s two-rail fence, came running to join us. He and some other boys told me that Mr Ashby carried a pick and shovel to dig a blackfellow out of a grave for Doctor Hayne. At that time my interest was centred on Dr Hayne and Bungaree—and I write now of only those things I saw with my own eyes, and heard with my own ears. Coming to the old carved stump, Dr Hayne said to Bungaree, “Why was this stump carved like this?”
Bungaree put his hands on his head and said, “Stump long, long time ago was tall, live tree. Blackfellow come, carve him plenty, make all about bury ground for my tribe. That time long, long ago... Great warrior chief of Namoi River tribe, him die, and him sit down close up this stump—all blackfellows look it, this stump, know great warrior chief sit down close up”—meaning that from the totems carved on the stump any aboriginal would know that a great warrior chief of the Namoi River tribe was buried near by and, according to the customs of this tribe, buried in a sitting position.
At this time those present at the carved stump were Doctor Hayne, Constable Lambert, Bungaree, and we four schoolboys. Mr Ashby was standing near Roache’s fence talking to Mr S. Turner, who had not long arrived. This small group gathered near the old marked stump had aroused the curiosity of half a dozen people who wended their way down from off Conadilly Street towards us.
Dr Hayne said, “Bungaree, this great warrior chief buried here, what name that one?”
Bungaree put his hands over his mouth and shook his head from side to side.
“Come, come,” the doctor urged, “tell him name if you know that one.”
Bungaree answered, “I bin know that name—I no tell name him!”
“Why not, why not?” the doctor said a bit angrily.
Bungaree replied, “Bad talk, blackfeller speakin’ a name of dead alonga burial ground.”
“Oh, all right, Bungaree, I don’t want you any longer, you can go,” said the doctor.
Bungaree started to walk slowly away. The doctor beckoned Mr Ashby to come to him.
“Here, Ashby, dig there.”
There was a slight mound in the ground that looked like an old abandoned red ants’ nest. It stood not far away from the stump. It was the grave of the warrior chief of this Namoi River tribe. “Thud!” The pick struck the ground. Bungaree, just thirty feet away, turned round to see the pick thud down for the second time into the grave. He let out a pitiful, wailing cry and ran, waving his hands about his head. In front of him down past the Wesleyan Church grounds and round the corner into Bloomfield Street also ran Jacob Painter, wailing loudly. They ran on to their camp near the lagoon. There was not an aboriginal in the town or camp that night except Bundaar the police tracker. It was a month before a few resumed to a new camp above the Burrell waterhole. But most of them drifted down river to Narrabri and Wee Waa.